Photo # 1 (Oct 2008)

THE HEART AND SOUL NEBULAS

If you listen, not to the pages or preachers but to the smallest flower growing from a crack in your heart, you will hear a great song moving across a wide ocean whose water is the music connecting all the islands of the universe together, and touching all you will feel it touching you around you... embracing you with light.
                              - John Squadra,  This Ecstasy
 

Credit: Digitized Sky Survey, ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator;
Color Composite: Davide De Martin (Skyfactory)

Is the heart and soul of our Galaxy located in Cassiopeia? Possibly not, but that is where two bright emission nebulas nicknamed Heart and Soul can be found. The Heart Nebula, officially dubbed IC 1805 and visible in the above zoomable view on the right, has a shape reminiscent of a classical heart symbol. Both nebulas shine brightly in the red light of energized hydrogen. Several young open clusters of stars populate the image and are visible above in blue, including the nebula centers. Light takes about 6,000 years to reach us from these nebulas, which together span roughly 300 light years. Studies of stars and clusters like those found in the Heart and Soul Nebulas have focussed on how massive stars form and how they affect their environment.

The universe without often seems to reflect the universe within. Some would say this is just our fantasy or wishful thinking, imposing our expectations upon the random forms of nature. Others sense that there is a collective consciousness, speaking to and through each of us.

Listen to your heart and see how you can connect to the inner gnowings that tell us of the deep inner truths that can bring healing to our lives and our planet.

                                               - Daniel Benor, MD